The Department of Education announced Tuesday that it is shifting some of its key functions to other parts of the federal government as part of President Trump’s plan to dismantle and eventually eliminate the agency.
Trump signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”
McMahon said Tuesday that in its “final mission,” the department “is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states.”
What’s changing: The department unveiled six new interagency agreements with four federal agencies that will now handle various education functions.
According to the announcement, the Department of Labor will take a greater role in administering programs that support K-12 education, “ensuring these programs are better aligned with workforce and college programs to set students up for success at every part of their education journey.” Labor will also start to oversee “most postsecondary education grant programs authorized under the Higher Education Act” of 1965.
The Department of the Interior will play a greater role in managing “Indian Education programs” at all levels, including vocational programs.
The Department of Health and Human Services will oversee the accreditation of foreign medical schools. HHS will also initiate a program to improve childcare facilities on college campuses.
The Department of State will take a larger role overseeing international education grants, since it is “best positioned to tailor foreign language education programs with the national security and foreign policy priorities of the United States.”
A long-running conservative target: The Department of Education celebrated its coming demise with a video shared on social media featuring a number of eminent Republicans — including Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and, finally, Trump — talking about their desire to shut down the agency. “A better education doesn’t mean a bigger Department of Education,” Reagan said in 1983. “In fact, that department should be abolished.”
Although many Republicans have long dreamed of eliminating the department, not all agree that it should be taken apart, nor that any such destruction should be carried out by the executive without congressional authorization. The power to eliminate a federal department lies with Congress, and lawmakers have not addressed the issue, raising questions about the legality of Trump’s effort.
“The United States Congress created the U.S. Department of Education for very good reason,” GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said in a statement Tuesday. “And for millions of families, particularly those raising children with disabilities or living in low-income communities, the Department’s core offices are not discretionary functions. They are foundational.”
Democrats generally agree that the department should remain intact, unless Congress says otherwise. “This is an outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education,” Sen. Patty Murray said, “and it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened—or even completely broken—in the process.”
Kevin Carey, who focuses on education at the liberal-leaning New American Foundation, said the administration’s moves will ultimately waste resources, despite being pitched as efficiency measures. “Secretary McMahon is creating a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that will waste millions of taxpayer dollars by outsourcing vital programs to other agencies,” he said. “It’s like paying a contractor double to mow your lawn and then claiming you’ve cut the home maintenance budget. It makes no sense.”
Trump administration presses on: In a briefing to reporters, the Department of Education defended the legality of the changes it is making, arguing that it maintains ultimate statutory responsibility, even if specific functions will be executed by other agencies. And some key functions, including special-education services and civil rights monitoring, remain fully within the department, although officials are reportedly looking for ways to move them elsewhere.
Still, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that the Trump administration aims to strip the Department of Education down as much as it can, even if it leaves a small husk in place to satisfy legal challenges.
Tuesday’s briefing was led by Lindsey Burke, the department’s deputy chief of staff for policy and programs. Before working in the Trump administration, Burke helped write the education section of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for conservative rule under a potential Trump administration. In that section, Heritage made it clear that it wants to dismantle the department.
“The federal Department of Education should be eliminated,” the Project 2025 plan says. “When power is exercised, it should empower students and families, not government.”